What is Separation of Church and State

Our Country is Changing?

Family, we usually sign off our programs, articles, and chapters in our books with, We love you! And very often we sign off this column that way! But we are so filled with love for you, and from you in your letters, it is difficult to keep from saying over and over again, We love you!

Today, as we write about our Popes down through the 2000 plus years of the history of our beloved Church, we find ourselves praising God for the gifts He has left us in our Princes of our Church. We realize how very intertwined the world’s history has been with the history of our Church.

Lately, we hear over and over again, the words of the First Amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”

That has been interpreted incorrectly as separation of church and state. So let us clear up something which has been distorted to mean, Church is not to interfere with the governing of our country. Rather our founding fathers never meant the restriction of religion, in matters of our country, but that of restrictions of the government in the matters of religion. To quote George Washington, first president of the United States “True religion affords to government its surest support.” And then John Adams, second president of the United States “Religion and virtue are the only foundations…of republicanism and of all free governments.”

There has been a concerted bombardment of attacks down through the annals of our Faith and that of all members of Christianity, to wipe out the Name of Jesus in our lives, in our history.

At a National Day of Prayer breakfast on February 3, 1994, Mother Teresa told the Congress of the United States, “…if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” and “..Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”

What does God have to do to get our attention?

We are the only country that I know of that has been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of our Mother Mary, Jesus’ Mother. We are the only country founded under God! We hear on Television that our country is a leader in the world. It is said, when fault has to be made, “As goes the United States, so goes the world.” We see the deadly, destructive agenda of men and women who would rob us of our inalienable rights, the greatest of which being the right to believe in God.

From the very beginning of our country, just a little country at that time, where immigrants fled to have religious freedom, to believe in the one true God, they went through hell, suffering unbelievable deprivations to live in a land where they were free to worship! Our courts covet our First Amendment rights for the protection of pornographers, but not for our freedom of religion.

What do we say to them now!!

We want to share a thought we had about three years ago, when we saw the complexion of our country changing, the god of money and selfishness stealthily choking our nation of all moral values we and our ancestors treasured. One day, frustrated by the blaringly apparent, insidious agenda of chasing God out of the mainstream of our life, we turned to the Old Testiment, when Moses came down from the mountain and found Aaron and the rest of the Israelites worshiping a golden calf. We didn’t know when or how it would come to pass, but we knew it could be the way our Lord would try to reach His children.

What golden calf? Well, it’s not a calf but a bull! We must ask ourselves, have we been worshipping the stock market with its bull? You say you do not invest in the stock market. Well, I don’t know about you, but it seems this mania of spending money faster than we could earn it, buying houses that we could not afford, the biggest, most expensive cars trading them in for the next year’s model has taken over our society.

I really cannot share the blame, not because of my thrifty nature, but because I am a dispression baby and I saw how hard it was for my parents to bring in enough money to feed us children. Dinner time, they always passed on eating meat, saying they’d had a big lunch. I thought they did not like meat as they always put potatoes or pasta, crowded with vegetables on their plates at dinner. But years later when times got better, and their plates took on a different raiment of color and assortment, I realized they had sacrificed for us children. Till today I have a problem throwing out leftovers we have failed to use fast enough.

We were poor, as most of our neighbors were; but I never felt poor! My father was out of work six years; my father, with a college education was one of the first to be laid off. Always partners, Mama went to work in a sweat shop, being paid pitifully little for piece work. I remember at the end of the Depression, going to visit my mother, for the first time, at the factory where she worked. I could hardly keep from crying! My mother and father never cried, never argued, never complained, blaming the government for the state of affairs. We and our neighbors never marched, except to honor our Lord and/or His Mother. Our summers were suffocatingly hot; (there was no air conditioning in those days) we and our neighbors sat on our porches, singing until the wee hours when it cooled down, following the passion and joy of the mandolins and the banjos plucking away.

We were poor; but no one spoke of it, or better yet complained. We were considered a minority – we were of Itallian descent. O.K. we worked harder, our parents insisted we go to school and earn honorary diplomas. We felt we had to work harder to be part of this great society’s family. And we did! Why do I tell you of our time during the depression? So that anyone who thinks they can rob us of the freedoms we worked and scraped and suffered for, it aint gonna happen(brooklyneze).

We, Christians and Jews alike who grew up side by side, may look fat and contented like so many fat cows; but we are all turning to God and not only welcoming Him back, we are worshipping Him as He deserves. Each evening after we say our evening prayers, we find ourselves begging our Father in Heaven to forgive us our sins and give us back our Nation founded under God. Do not let godless elements who have taken over our state and federal government take away your freedoms. Fight for what you believe in. Vote them out of office. Pray to God to give us good, moral people to bring our country back to where we were when it all began. God bless you. We love you!